Displaced Comrades: Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West

This book explores the lives of left-wing Soviet refugees who fled the Cold War to settle in Australia, and uncovers how they adjusted to life under surveillance in the West. As Cold War tensions built in the postwar years, many of these refugees happily resettled in the West as model refugees, proof of capitalist countries' superiority. But for a few, this was not the case. Displaced Comrades provides an account of these Cold War misfits, those refugees who fled East for West, but remained left-wing or pro-Soviet. Drawing on interviews, government records and surveillance dossiers from multiple continents this book explores how these refugees' ideas took root in new ways. As these radical ideas drew suspicion from western intelligence these everyday lives were put under surveillance, shadowed by the persistent threat of espionage. With unprecented access to intelligence records, Nilsson focuses on how a number of these left-wing refugees adjusted to life in Australia, opening up a previously invisible segment of postwar migration history, and offering a new exploration of life as a Soviet 'enemy alien' in the West. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Figures Maps Acknowledgements Transliteration Abbreviations Introduction Migrants in motion Reconstructing the journey One club, seven lives and two spies Chapter 1: The Russian Social Club Chapter 2: Boris: ‘I am a Soviet citizen and so I will stay’ Chapter 3: Jerzy: Pied piper of discontented workers Chapter 4: Juris: From Latvian legionnaire to kolkhoznik Chapter 5: Sasha: KGB rezidents and Orthodox priests Chapter 6: Natalia and Lydia: Harbin women abroad Chapter 7: Jacob: ‘A Jew first and foremost’ Chapter 8: Surveillance, spies and informants Breaking down ASIO: B1, B2 and C branch The process of surveillance J. Baker Migrants as subject and source Conclusion Bibliography Archives Interviews Journals and newspapers Memoirs and family histories Official and reference publications Theses and dissertations Secondary works Index